The Jungle
"The Jungle" portrays the lower ranks of the industrial world as the scene of a naked struggle for survival. Where workers not only are forced to compete with each other but, if they falter, are hard pressed to keep starvation from their door and a roof over their heads. With unions weak and cheap labor plentiful, a social Darwinist state of "the survival of the fittest" exists. The real story revolves around the integration and eventual disintegration of Jurgis Rudkis and his family, Lithuanian immigrants who move to the Chicago stockyards in hopes of a better life. Unfortunately, their hopes quickly disintegrate; like thousands of other unskilled immigrants at the turn of the century, financial necessity forces them into virtual slave labor in order to survive. For Jurgis and his family, the slave master is the ruthless and greedy meat packing industry, whose leaders value their workers no more than the animals they slaughter. "The Jungle" shows the relationship between the animals that were being slaughtered and the workers who were slaughtering them, from very early in the novel. It compares the workers to the animals who are penned up and killed every day in the stockyards, which are moved along on conveyer belts by machin
"And each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart's desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. (Pg. 35) Here is another part of the story that shows the relationship between the animals and the people of packing town. Immigrants with peasant backgrounds, and even migrants from America's own rural regions, are especially ill equipped to survive the urban jungle because of their stubborn individualism. Jurgis relies on his own strong back to carry his family, to cope with inhuman work, but he simply becomes a screw in the industrial machine, to be discarded as soon as he shows the signs of being broken. Jurgis and his family are desperate to own something, to be on their own, to make them feel more apart of their new country. To try to make their American dreams come true. "And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him and a horrid fate waited in his pathway." (Pg. 35) Jurgis and his family tried as much as they possibly could to hold on to their hopes and dreams of truly succeeding in this town. Jurgis was the worst of all of them with his famous saying "Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earn more money- I will work harder." (Pg. 19) Even after Grandmother Majauszkiene told the family about the history of the house they lived in. How each of the families came in with the same hopes and dreams. Each time only being crushed by the jungle that they lived in. (pg. 65) Jurgis and his family were not going to give up they were going to be the ones who defeated the odds that were up against them. They were going to rise on top of this whole mess and live to tell the stories of the way it used to be. Each of them not realizing what they were in for, not knowing what the jungle had up its sleeve. "Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it-it did its cruel will with him, as i
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1371
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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